Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov used his speech to the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) on Saturday to reiterate Russia's commitment to achieving its military aims in Ukraine. The Russian diplomat did not mention the increasingly frequent and successful Ukrainian attacks on Russia's oil refineries, the most recent of which occurred on Friday.
"In 2022, we began a special military operation to protect people in Donbas and Novorossiya [New Russia], to protect them from elimination by the Kyiv regime" Lavrov told the assembly.
"Our fight for truth and justice will be seen through to the end. The objectives of our special military operation will be achieved and threats to our security will be eliminated," the Russian diplomat continued.
Russia invaded Ukraine in an operation the Kremlin deems the "Special Military Operation" in February 2022. Moscow claims that the operation was necessary to "denazify" Ukraine and prevent a genocide against Russian speakers in the eastern European nation, claims that are widely disputed by international legal scholars and human rights groups.
Nevertheless, Lavrov repeatedly brought up these talking points during his address, accusing Ukraine's European allies of being "contaminated with the virus of racial superiority", espousing "Russophobic extremist ideas" and ignoring "Ukrainian Nazism" in order to "inflict strategic defeat on Russia".
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has repeatedly disputed Russia's claims that it is Nazified, pointing to his own Jewish ancestry as proof of the irrationality of the accusation.
For his part the Ukrainian president, who addressed the UNGA on Wednesday, seems just as determined as Lavrov to continue the fight.
"Every day, we respond to the aggressor for its terror against our people and our country. There are new results from our warriors long-range responses. Last night, the Ilsky Oil Refinery in the Krasnodar region was hit." the Ukrainian leader confirmed early on Saturday.
The Ukrainian General Staff confirmed that the attack had resulted in a fire at the Southern Russian facility.
Ukraine appears to be stepping up its attacks on Russia's oil infrastructure; the strike on the Krasnodar facility follows similar Ukrainian strikes on two Russian oil refineries on Thursday night. The International Energy Agency reported in mid-September that, in the first eight months of 2026, a Russian refinery was struck on average once every three days.
The U.S. has been critical of the strikes; President Donald Trump said the attacks were "hurting the world" and driving up U.S. diesel prices, while Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent also blamed Ukraine for a global energy shock.
Oil prices are rising worldwide; Brent, the international oil benchmark, has hovered around the $100 mark since early September, having been consistently cheaper than $100 since May.
However, most experts point to the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, the world's most critical oil transit chokepoint, and the ongoing Iran-U.S. war as the reason for high prices.
